A wide range of factors were taken into account and balanced against each other in making the overall selection of location for each Department and agency. These factors included: the need to achieve a fit with the national spatial strategy, in terms of the gateways, hubs and their respective catchments; the location of existing decentralised offices; the desirability of clustering a Department's decentralised units within a region; the importance of respecting the scale and character of locations in terms of their capacity to absorb the number of new jobs involved; the existence of good transport links by road, rail and-or air; and, the general infrastructural capacity in the areas selected.